putting up either somebody really weak with no backbone against a scum bag. >> right. >> and that dynamic is killing it. >> yeah. ben and michelle, thank you for making time on this friday evening. a reminder, open enrollment for health care under the affordable care act ends tonight. the deadline is a few hours away. we have time. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> have a good weekend. >> you, too. thanks for joining us this hour. i'm doing something a little different. we're doing something special tonight, and i think we have picked exactly the right night to do it. just in today's news, the president went to the grounds of the fbi and as he was heading into the fbi where he spoke at an fbi ceremony, he proclaimed the fbi to be a disgrace and might pardon the national security advisor mike flynn and

said i don't want to talk about pardoning mike flynn yet. we then got sort of a red flag thrown by congressman adam schiff on the intelligence committee that went public today with his concerns that he believes the republicans in congress are trying to end the house intelligence committee investigation into the russia scandal by the end of next -- by the end of this month. he says he thinks they are trying to wrap it up now and he was explicit about why. he believes the republican's view is shutting down our investigation is a necessary prerequisite to shutting down bob muller. thereafter, we learned that the president's legal team is going to be meeting in person next week with robert mueller and his prosecutors. we're not exactly sure why. we then got confirmation from the wall street journal that those subpoenas that had been sent to bank received multiple

subpoenas that and we got further fargo at least receives one subpoena for the muller investigation as recently as last week. that may be important and the cause for anxiety because this president december skrscribed hs as essentially a red line for the muller investigation, one that he would not expect the muller investigation to cross. so all that happened today on the day we planned to do a special thing. i think this means that one of my ancestors several generations back did something good one day because it's paying off for me right now. as a show and for me, as a host of a news program, we very often end up wishing that we had a lawyer or seven around we could speak to for free who would help make sense of daily developments, particularly in

this scandal afflicting this presidency. and that's not just because it's a legal scandal that involves prosecutors and defense teams but because there are a lot of parts that seem to be news but those of us without law degrees, it doesn't make sense. particularly feels difficult to figure out whether some legal action that happened in this scandal the is a big deal or what happens in cases like this it's normal, don't get too excited. because of that on going desire, we have decided for this special rachel maddow show tonight to gather here four of the best legal minds in the country who will answer our phone calls. we're calling important people out there. we're sort of thinking of this as trms law skul,chool, trm srse if we're feeling fancy. part of what we'll to is air out questions that we've had as a staff about this scandal, but

we've also solicited questions from you guys at home. we have a good set of viewer questions to ask, as well. without further a due, joining us professors for the night. there will be a quiz. chuck rosenburg, a job appointed by president bush and until a few months ago administrator of the drug enforcement. barbara mcquaid was an appointee for the eastern district of michigan and now a professor at the university of michigan law school and a fake professor tonight. stanton was under president obama and now in private practice and paul fishman, the point guard, obama's attorney and now a real life law professor. thank you for being here tonight. >> happy to be here. >> as you can tell from the repeating of my speech, happy to be here. feel free to tell me if i'm asking a dumb question.

or to jump in on each other. i expect you-all will not agree on all of these matters and so feel free to fight it out if we come up with something we don't feel the same way about. let me start by asking about the way the president made news about mike flynn. mike flynn pled guilty to one count of lying to the fbi. the president said he did not want to talk about partdoning mike flynn yet. i'm interested in the yet as a strategy. if the president were to pardon mike flynn now, what would happen to the testimony that mike flynn has presumably already offered the muller team as part of coming this to plea deal and am i right he probably already gave information? >> i think you should assume he has and assume he's given a lot of information to the muller team. to answer your question, if the president were to pardon mike flynn, that doesn't preclude the

muller team from continuing to use investigation that general flynn has. >> okay. >> in other words, it gets him off the hook for a crime he may have committed but doesn't remove the obligation to give testimony should he be subpoenaed. >> in terms of him testifying, i know that the calculous that mike flynn might have about continuing to cooperate with the government might change for him if he's partdoned if he knows they can't prosecute him anymore. he's given them information. they want to put him on the stand. can they still put him on the stand. would it affect the value of the testimony? >> two things about that. one is down can compel him to testify and answer questions but i think when somebody is being compelled, it's very different from if they have an incentive to cooperate. they would be volunteering information. they would be suggesting leads and connecting the dots for you. if instead, you got to pull teeth to answer questions, you'll get yes, no answers. the other wrinkle here is if

president trump can pardon michael flynn, he couldn't pardon him from state crimes that he might be exposed to. they could use that for leverage, as well, potentially. >> that brings me to another question i have been wondering about with flynn's deal. we got a great question from a viewer named jim who wrote and said why would a defendant agree to a plea deal that flynn did? it doesn't really protect him from much. and i think what jim is getting at there is what is in the plea deal, what's in the statement of the offense and everything is not very much information. and maybe that means they don't have very much on flynn but it's my understanding that at least in some jurisdictions, when you get a guilty plea, you layout every single thing you got expect them and expect the agreements to be juicy. this was very thin. >> even if you don't write out in the plea agreement everything the person admitted to. let's take a step back. when this conversation happens between flynn or someone in

flynn's position and a prosecutor, someone broaches the subject of a plea agreement and cooperation can come from the government and defense lawyer. but if the government is interested in flynn's cooperation, they want to know what he's going to tell them before they sign the deal. >> okay. >> at some point before that plea agreement got signed, my expectation is that general flynn first through his lawyers but then directly face-to-face with the agents and prosecutors gave them information on a proffer which says here is what the information i have and i would say many i was called to testify and say about my conduct and say about everyone else's conduct. once that happens, then the plea agreement is negotiated and the terms are laid out. what's weird about this plea agreement, in the context of that conversation, ordinarily, mike flynn would have been asked by bob muller or bob muller's staff, tell us everything you did. that's the first thing they ask and the reason they ask that is that's how they measure someone's capacity. if he told them everything he

did, his lawyers say now that he's told you everything, he wants to be protected from being prosecuted. >> all those things. >>ment issometimes the plea agreement will say that but sometimes it says the government will bring in further charges related to the information about general flynn's conduct, about which the government has information as of the date of this agreement. that phrase, those closes are missing andist strange he's not the there. >> it's possible there is nothing else there and the special counsel feels there is nothing else that feels comfortable with the 1,00001. >> what is that? >> lying to the government, to the fbi. it was a tool back when i served as u.s. attorney we use not

frequently but often times when you might not make a full case and come early in a case and a lot of that is going on. see two guilty pleas we have here. they are both 1001 claims and that's not something typically used all the time but also resource that in this case special counsel has to lock in the testimony to find out what is going on and to move forward with the investigation. >> barb, to your point if flynn were pardoned, that would be a federal pardon, the president can't pardon anybody for state crimes. there is also this line in flynn's deal that says he has to cooperate with other federal state and local law enforcement authorities in any and all matters. and he has signed that. is that boilerplate in everybody's plea deal? >> it's not and you have correctly detected what could be

telegraphing that this could be for example a state attorney general's and reports the new york attorney general might be investigating reports around manafort that could expand. i don't know there could be state jurisdiction over everything going on but certainly it parallels many things most states have a computer fraud and abuse statute for example. if that becomes one of the crimes. so if they have to shift gears and move into the state realm to avoid a pardon scenario, i think robert mueller is is seeing the chess moves on the board. >> okay. let me ask you about one other part of the flynn reporting at least around this deal that i just don't -- i get as a matter of drama but don't get as a matter of law. a lot of people are saying general flynn is really, really acutely interested in protecting his son from being prosecuted. his son as far as i know just had his first child. he worked with his father closely at the flynn intel group. i get the human drama of this. what i don't get is how a person

can trade their own information for somebody else's liberty. can you pass your get out of jail free card to somebody else? >> not typically. it's rare. i've seen it once or twice where and the government might be able to trade it freedom. now it's unusual. the point about the flynn i think this is important, rachel. a lot of people have been talking about how the muller team was leveraging the son or using the son to get to the father. they were playing one off the other. i don't think the pros cecutors thing that way. it might be the case that the child, the son committed a crime. and the fact that you're looking at him puts pressure on the father but you don't do it for that reason. you have to make an independent

judgment about each defendant. here is what i mean. let's say you charge them both and you only charge the son to leverage the father. that is the only reason you charge them. something happens to the father. he gets hit by a bus. he's not there for trial. can you bring that case against the son as a stand alone for the jury against 12? if the answer is no, you don't charge him. sometimes talking about using the son to leverage the father is a little glib. good prosecutors and bob muller is a good investigator. you make might have the effect. >> two other quick points then i think is one is sometimes it happens that when someone comes in to cooperate and gets debriefed by the government about their information, sometimes part of their proffer is by the way, my son didn't know anything about this. sometimes the decision not to prosecute a family member is made reasonably by the

prosecution team -- >> intrinsically. >> that's one thing. >> it's important to keep that in mind. the second, if there is an understanding unwritten in the plea agreement that general flynn's son will not be prosecuted because of this deal, the government will have to disclose that fact to any defendant against whom general flynn might testify so that general flynn can be cross-examined on whether he is being truthful. >> explain how that would work, i'm sorry. >> let's say general flynn testifies in the paul manafort trial and lawyers will be entitled to be told, manafort will say part of flynn's deal is not in the agreement. part of the deal is that -- because that would go to the question of flynn's culpability and whether his -- and whether he's guilding or embellishing testimony or hiding facts to protect his son. they would be entitled to know that. >> on the proffer in terms of what flynn offered, is that something that he just does in a

conference room with these prosecutors? does he testify to the grand jury at any point? >> he could. the first thing that happens is a proffer and the proffer can be used for certain things not others. it can't be introduced by the government in a case as an admission or confession by michael flynn. this is what he testified to, ladies and gentlemen and therefore you should convict him of x. it can be used for other things if he testifies inconsistently, they can cross kp-examine him. if i'm bob muller and if i've heard the president of the united states imply that he's thinking about a pardon for mike flynn, i'm getting mike flynn into the grand jury to testify under oath as quickly as i can so that that testimony, whatever testimony he's going to give is lockdown. >> all right. one last question for you on flynn and then we'll take a quick break. we got a question from viewer jean and jean wants to ask,

what, if any, are the liabilities incurred by white house staff other than the president for failure to act upon the security warnings with regard to flynn. this is about the 18 days between the warning from acting attorney general sally yates about mike flynn being compromised with the russians, 18 days he lapsed before the white house apparently acted on that warning and asked for his resignation. i'm wondering specially about his security clearance. is -- if you are under fbi investigation, if you're under criminal investigation, aren't they supposed to yank you're security clearance? once the white house was notified, shouldn't they have pulled that? >> go ahead. >> so the answer depends in part, rachel, hate to be a lawyer here but depends on what it is he's under investigation for and what the justice department conveys to the white house. >> okay. >> all right? so the answer is perhaps. not automatically, perhaps.

there are remedies in between letting him keep his clearance and pulling it. right? so you can exclude him from certain topics. if we're talking about x and he doesn't get to sit in on x. there is a range of things they can do to jean's question, would somebody in the white house have liability i guess is the question for failing to act on that knowledge? the answer is probably not criminal liability unless they are doing it to cover something else up and you can spin out a scenario where that might be the case but in the more typical case, if someone failed to act then they, too, in theory could lose clearance if they weren't doing what they could to protect security information. good question, highly pact depende dependent. >> there is one twist, which of course, i believe the public reporting is don mcgahn briefed the president on thursday january 26th or the next day about the fact that sally yates said we believe general flynn was not telling the truth about

his denying talking to the russians about sanctions. if people didn't yank the security clearance and it was the president's decision, it's hard to imagine how everybody else, it's the president that gets to make that decision. >> the president basically has unilateral authority. >> that's right. >> they are sticking around. much more in a minute. you haven't finished your first year yet. we aren't to torts. [ laughter ] >> lawyers love that. patrick woke up with back pain.

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would you consider a pardon from michael flynn. >> i don't want to talk about

35 pardons from michael flynn yet. let's see what happens. i can say this, when you look what has gone on with the fbi and justice department, people are very, very angry. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. >> president also today said that he was just going to rebuild the fbi after describing the fbi has a disgrace. he said we're going to rebuild it. joining us is the all star group of former u.s. attorneys and justice department officials. thank you-all for doing this. so the president today did go hammer and tongs against the fbi. he described the fbi has a disgrace and said we'll rebuild the fbi. i want to add to that the fact republican congressman trey gowdy said last night that he would be quote a little bit surprised if fbi deputy director is still an employee of the fbi this time next week. he was asked about mr. mccabe and his testimony in congress

and said he expects him tore fired before next week. here is my question, with the fbi under this political attack, i know they are always described as independent but how independent are they? who could fire the fbi director, the fbi deputy director and influence decisions within the fbi from outside the fbi? >> well, i think they are truly independent. they can be fired. you can fire the director and keep going down the line but with 35,000 employees, at some point the buck is going to stop. i worked with fbi agents for over 20 years and they are the most professional dedicated to mission people i ever met. that's why i find this attack on the fbi to be so harmful. in self-interest, president trump is trying to undermine the credibility of the fbi for this case but the effect is undermine public credibility in every case. if you ask agents, they won't care and say i have thick skin and i can take it.

in terms of the thousands of cases pending around the country, bank robbery cases, while collar crime, the jury hears the president say they are a disgrace. i think this is incredibly anti law enforcement and procriminal to make these statements. >> edward, you were outside the beltway u.s. attorney in the west heern district of tennesse. when barb says this is nationwide implications across law enforcement and in a corridor conflict here, does that ring for you somebody that prosecutes cases in tennessee? >> i'm concerned about the moral within the burro as barb mentioned. you have dedicated men and women that do a great job no matter who is in the white house, not a red or blue way to be an fbi agent but to serve and it strikes -- i've had conversations and really strikes to the moral of going in every day and doing great work on behalf of the country. that's the biggest piece.

to answer the earlier question, who can, you know, fire the director? obviously, the president. >> yeah. could the attorney general fire the fbi director? >> i don't know there is president for that. >> no, it would have to come from the president. you were probably going in this direction. the fbi is 35,000 plus strong. one of the strengths of the fbi is its political layer is so remarkably thin. by that, how many of the 35,000 employees are political appointees? the answer is is only oonly one >> uh-huh. >> every other man and woman in the fbi is a civil servant. >> will you describe your role? >> two roles. i had the privilege for working for two directors, bob muller in 2002 and 2003 as counsel to the director and from 19 -- i'm sorry, 2013 to 2015, not that old. [ laughter ] >> i worked for jim comey as his chief of staff so i got to work

with these men and women. they are extraordinary. i can't prove to you here that the fbi is not in tatters. i can tell you they are not. i know they are not. to barb's point, i have a potential solution. the courthouse doors are open to every citizen. every courthouse in america is open to the public. go watch a trial. watch these men and women testify. look at the cases they put together. you can decide for yourself. you don't have to believe us. decide for yourself whether or not the fbi is in tatters. i can tell you it's an extraordinary vibrant, smart, proud independent organization but you can find out for yourself. >> what happens when we get an attack like this on the fbi? obviously, i hear when you say you're worried about moral given the important work and national security work as an agency but what is the consequence? we all at this table agree it's a dangerous thing but i don't know what happens because of it.

i don't know what the consequence is and i don't know if i should be worried about what the fbi as a very powerful agency might do to stand up for itself when it feels it's under attack the way it hasn't been in generations. >> one potential place where this could have some effect, although i'm optimistic it won't is in the fbi's relationships with other law enforcement organizations in the united states and around the world. we tend to think of the fbi as investigating bank robberies and things we've all eluded to. the fbi has an enormous role in intelligence and counterterrorism. and their counter parts across the world and if those people think that the fbi is not going to get backed by the president of the united states, that's a problem. i'm hopeful in the united states where those relationships are build on long, personal relationships between police chiefs and sheriffs and local cops and special agents that those relationships will in fact remain strong and i think you'll

also see and i hope you see the law enforcement organizations saying wait a minute, they are actually really talented. they are really helpful. they work really well and qualified to do what they do. >> there is controversy this week very politicized co controversy about text messages, a justice fbi lawyer, excuse me. fbi lawyer and a senior fbi counter intelligence official named peter struck and lisa page and a lot of controversy as to why their personal text messages to one another were made public. setting that aside for the moment. peter struck was part of the muller investigation. he was reportedly taken off the muller investigation when the inspector general of the justice department became aware of the text messages and showed them to mr. muller and then that was the end of his time on the muller investigation. here is my question, what does a counter intelligence senior official at the fbi do? i understand what agents do

because i've seen the americans so i think i'm a genius about these things and i got complete control but being the number two official in the fbi on counter intelligence, what is his job? what does he do? how big a loss of it regardless whether it was good he was taking up the investigation, how big a loss he's not on there? >> so first principle, the fbi is also intelligence agency. a lot of people don't appreciate they are dual had. we know them from the movies as a law enforcement agency and intelligence agency, part of the intelligence community. they check intelligence and share that with members of the u.s. intelligence community. so what does an fbi senior counter intelligence agent do? some of that. where do you get intelligence? lots of different ways, lots of different sources for signals intelligence, human intelligence. there is a whole bunch of different ways and one of the jobs of the fbi just as the cia or nsa is to give it to the

operators. sometimes give it to people in law enforcement to do their jobs better and sometimes to other people in the intelligence community to do their jobs better and when it works well and it often works very well, rachel, all of the intelligence community is sharing information with one another and enhancing each of the missions. so senior fbi officials would oversee that process. the collection and decimation of intelligence, which is a fancy word for information. >> counter intelligence is about other countries, right? >> so they all -- i can't go into great detail here but yes, it is and they also have a responsibility for collecting intelligence that from farn governmen -- foreign governments. >> see, this is important stuff. we'll be back. barbara mcquaid, edward stanton, chuck rosenburg are here. you're not yet to your second year but we're getting there.

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>> oh. yeah, i can see it. there is a cheekbones issue. >> george clooney. that's my answer. >> edward, you have to bet, will trump fire muller? >> not a betting guy but i will say no. >> uh-huh. paul fishman, if edward is wrong, and the president fires muller, who will you text about it first? >> you. [ laughter ] >> we'll be right back. thank you. it's the phillips' lady!

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you know the magic eight balls you shake and they tell the future? we have a human equivalent for legal questions and we promise, we will not shake them. former u.s. attorneys, thank you again. we're just talking in the lightning round about the prospect of the president trying to end muller's investigation by firing the special counsel. aside from the prospects of how exactly the president would have to go about that and who he would have to fire and saturday night massacre and all that stuff, if by crook, robert mueller was dismissed tomorrow, viewer jeff wants to know, what would happen to flynn's guilty plea? would happen to the manafort indictment. what would happen to the justice department's on going involve m -- involvement with guilty

pleas and sentencing? >> the firing of muller does not necessarily end the investigation. he can only be fired for just cause and conflict overinteref . if he were fired beyond that, there could be reckoning for the person that makes the firing decision. >> what do you mean by that? >> there would be outrage if he was fired on a whim. rod said he hired him and can fire him and he won't fire him except for just cause and i believe that and i think that's where rosenstein satands. the investigation continues and existed before muller was appointed and the eastern district of virginia and continue, the question is under whose jurisdiction, would a u.s. attorney pick it up or would there be a special counsel hired? >> if the justice deputy hire r

archie was persuaded, he could end it. >> he could end the investigation. the deputy attorney general i suppose could order the investigation and prosecutors to dismiss a case but i don't think that's not what rod rosenstein is going to do if ordered to fire muller and if he doesn't quit before he carries out that order, he'll have cases and investigations and up to him to decide where they go and whether they get sent to chuck's office in the manafort case or to new york to the southern district or eastern district of new york whether they get sent to the criminal division but they won't go away because bob muller is not at the helm. >> i don't think, dean maddow, knowing rod rosenstein like we do having served as a u.s. attorney for maryland, rod is someone who is unquestionably has the character, the independence to serve. he served in two different administrations so again, i'm

not sure that -- i am sure he cannot be persuaded. knowing rod the way i do, he would step down before being persuaded or influenced to direct an investigation. >> on that point, were you rattled given those feelings, were you rattled when he okayed the release of those fbi officials' personal texts despite the fact there is an on going inspector general -- >> i'm not sure i would say rattled. what i think what the deputy attorney general rosen sistein wants to do is avoid appearance. he unl stoderstood this informa would be leaked or shared and to get in front of that and share this investigation, there may have been a wrinkle dealt with but to get in front is a larger story there is a coverup of activity toward or illegal. >> chuck? >> so i agree with that but there is something about that that troubled me.

i don't think i was rattled but troubled. let me tell you why. the way we view our justice system sort of turns on two factors. one is that outcomes are fair and just. if you rob a bank, rachel, and you're convicted for robbing the bank, that's a fair and just outcome. but there is a second way that we sort of measure our justice system. it's our perception of fairness. you rob a bank, you're convicted of robbing the bank but the prosecutor is talking about his destain for tall white women with dark hair and been doing that for 20 years. you're justly convicted but people doubt the process has the integrity it ought to have. you need the perception of the system to be fair and you need the system to actually be fair. and here is the problem with the text messages. it answers one of those questions or pretends to answer one of those questions. it suggests that the process is not fair. what i was hoping would happen is that the inspector general would put out a report telling us about everything.

there was a bad perception, perhaps they shouldn't have written what they wrote. i'm not convinced that the first amendment argument gets us out of this thing meaning that they can write whatever they want whenever they want to write it. they ought to be more circumspect. if those texts come out in context, it could tell us the outcome was fair. in other words, they shouldn't have written these things. they should have been more circumspect but no reason to think the outcome was tainted so that is the problem with just releasing the text without the context for them. >> without a sense of how this will impact the country in on an going way outside this case. >> right. >> i want to ask you a few questions that we got from viewers that are i think super interesting and very specific. rita wants to know about non-disclosure agreements in trump world. anybody whose ever been associated with donald j. trump is forced to sign a

non-disclosure. are these null and void in the case of testimony with an investigative body. can witnesses refuse to answer questions to refuse liability in one of these non-disclosures? >> not context we're talking about here tonight, which are federal grand jury investigations and potentially federal criminal trials, a federal subpoena will trump those. >> would a person fight that out and have the court decide it? >> likely, yes. >> okay. another very specific question on the president's tax returns, can a special counsel access the president's tax returns if it is germane to the investigation? if he wants to, who does he have to convince to get them? >> yes, there is a process under the federal rules and statute. it's an eye order title 26 sub i of the code you have to apply to a magistrate judge and convince there is reasonable cause a

crime hasen committed and you can't get information by any other means. if you can satisfy a judge that standard has been met, you can get an order to get the tax returns. >> does the target of the order find out when that happened or does the irs -- >> the irs would turn it over because otherwise, that would compromise the integrity of the investigation. >> barbara is exactly right, right to the correct paragraph of the statute. but i would add this is an extraordinary ordinary thing for white collar prosecutors to do. meaning, it happens all the time. >> no extra hurdles for it being the president? >> it might cause the magistrate judge, might cause her to read it jus a it little more carefully but the standard is the standard. the standard doesn't change for the president or you or me. so as a white collar prosecutor, i can tell you it's a very logical place to start. why? well, my colleagues know this.

it gives you a ton of leads. where did the money come from? where did the money go? to whom do you wish to subpoena for more information? i don't know they got the tax returns but i know what white collar prosecutors do when they get tax returns. >> all the of the money. >> one more question before we have to take a break, a very specific question. i think i know the answer but then i talk myself out of it so i will ask the pros. jared kushner met with muller's investigators, that is not true of donald trump junior, vice president mike pence or the president himself. does that mean for all of us observing this, that jared kushner likely has more to worry about than those others do? do prosecutors bring charges against people without ever meeting with them and questioning them first? >> all the time. >> really? >> yes. because lawyers represent those people don't want to bring their clients in to talk to the

prosecutors under those circumstances. if your client is someone likely to be indicted, nothing, almost nothing good can happen when you bring your client no to talk to prosecutors and have a free shot finding out what that perspective defendant's story is likely to be. >> should we see jared kushner being more out of the woods because his lawyer put him in with prosecutors? >> under some circumstances yes, but here no. because often there are three people you just mentioned who can't say no if muller asks. jared kushner because he works for the white house and vice president and president. >> why can they not say no? >> legally they can but politically they can't. it would be untenable for them to say i was asked to be interviewed by the special counsel. we pledged full cooperation and decided we're not going to go. donald trump junior may be slightly different because he's not a defendant employee for him the risks are a little less but under those circumstances, i think that you can't really draw the conclusion at the moment. >> i knew you would know and i

should mention we do know that both the vice president's lawyers and the president's lawyers have met with muller's team even if the vice president and president themselves have not. all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪shostakovich playing ♪

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we're back with barbara, edward, chuck, all former attorneys and justice department officials. this is from viewer carol. we have a similar question of viewer kimberly. i have heard that special counsel can't indict a sitting

president. question, what if the crime was committed before he became president, say money laundering? if the president is guilty of money laundering or any other serious crimes prior to taking office, could he be convicted of those and sent to jail? specifically, i want to know, are there circumstances where he could be incarcerated? >> what was mentioned earlier, chuck mentioned, it depends. the statute of depends is where to look or watch. >> money laundering? >> five unless they changed it in the statute. >> typically five. >> there's plenty of time for this. >> within the statute of limitations? >> there's still an office of legal counsel opinion from the watergate era saying a sitting president cannot be inditded. we don't know the legal limits but i would submit that bob mueller probably not indict the sitting president for any crimes

during the administration or before. he could be charged after he leaves the white house. so long as the statute of limitations has not expired. >> everybody feel the same way about that? think there will not be an indictment? >> there's a legal opinion and not the in-depth, well researched kind of opinion that olc typically issues and might be that somebody -- and the watergate independent counsel had a different view on the question and to while i tend to think that bob mueller would like to follow that particular advice if that's the advice out of the office i would be surprised given the people on the staff to take another look and see if that's reasonable under the circumstances. >> especially because of that ambiguity of if it's possibility and the issue of the president trying to end the mueller investigation somehow firing people or doing something else, we have a lot of questions about what is a constitutional crisis. people use constitutional crisis as the go-to hyperbole, but what

is it? what's the difference of a constitutional crisis and a typical tuesday crisis and the people in this investigation that might rise to that level? >> well, i actually think the question of whether the president gets indicted or not is a constitutional crisis because it involves a question of constitutional interpretation and law on which there are differing views, sharply, and well thought out views on both sides. i think what -- if bob mueller is fired, the president, makes a referral to the house for impeachment, i don't know it's a crisis as a political crisis and the president of the united states, his fitness to lead, under particular circumstances is being questioned and congress is being called upon to undertake a particular remedy at a particular time. >> if the president, you know, gets indicted, bob mueller issues an indictment, and the president refuses to acknowledge its existence or its validity, who settles that?

>> well, see, kons constitution crises is decided by the congress and we refer to as a constitutional crisis is a constitutional question. and so far including president nixon, everybody has abided by the rulings of the supreme court of the united states. that seems to be a fundamental sort of principle of our country. i hope and even predict that we will continue to abide by the rule of law here. >> standing under that andrew jackson portrait, you know that's what i worry about. >> crises is -- it might be a little bit overblown here. it is susceptible to debate and to resolution by the supreme court of the united states. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. thank you clients? well jd power did just rank them highest in investor satisfaction with full service brokerage firms... again. and online equity trades are only $4.95...

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all right. one last question for our dream team here. paul fishman, i start with you and ask you all the the same question. we know the president, very bright and great taste, watches a lot of cable news. on the off chance he is watching right now, i want him to benefit from your expertise, as well. if the president is watching and could give him a small piece of advice, legal or just advice, what would you tell him? >> lower the temperature. >> what does that mean? >> i would tell him to stop taking shots at the fbi, stop taking shots at the special counsel. it is not going to help him with the investigators and i think it's not going to help him ultimately with the public.

>> edward. >> i'd say that bob mueller, rod rosenstein, the reputations proceed them. >> uh-huh. uh-huh. >> barb? >> this is a counter intelligence investigation about the country and our fair elections. quit undermining the investigation and fully cooperate. >> chuck? >> to respect the men and women of law enforcement and the intelligence community. these are folks, these are extraordinary public servants and they deserve all of our support. >> chuck, barbara, edward, paul, all eminent publicer is vabts each of you and collectively quite an overwhelming dream team here. thank you so much for spending this hour with us. i've learned more than i can recuperate from for quite sometime. really. >> thank you for having us. >> you're now graduated from law school so practice law. take it from me. i'll send you a note. we'll see you again on monday. now